My Report report

Hey world, Observe and Report has something to say to you:

The mall is by design a source of many things, but in Jody Hill's Observe and Report, it's mostly a place to find misery. Through the double doors is a flasher, unrequited love that's more embarrassing than classically tragic (thus all the more tragic), a guy shooting up, a police beating and a pervasive sense of status anxiety. The shopping center as suffering center metaphor works perfectly in a film as deceptively noncommercial as this. It casts Seth Rogen, beloved Hollywood go-to schlub for middle-of-the-road yuks, as a rage-filled, racist failure in a film that's the fucked-up, reckless and cum-reeking brother of the decidedly frothier, much more popular Paul Blart: Mall Cop (that movie grossed over six times the amount of money Observe did in the U.S.). The people who did see Observe, who has no reason not to expect just another lighthearted stumble down the escalator, must have felt like this:

It's a film so slyly subversive, it's as though the point is to be unpopular. For the first half or so, we view Rogen's Ronnie, the head of security at Forest Ridge Mall who wears his personal insecurities like a badge (he berates a news reporter that dares to refer to him without his official title), as we would any other manchild-just-'cause in typical contemporary Hollywood comedy. We watch him bumble through the mall as he attempts to solve the case of a serial flasher who's been exposing himself to women ("I'm gonna fuck you!" "Touch it, slut!" "See my dick!" growls the flasher early on, setting up the film's ha...ha? tone). At the same time, we watch him fumble to win the heart of make-up-counter worker Brandi (Anna Faris), who's skeezy and kind of gross, but still way out of Ronnie's league. He doesn't do very well in any of his endeavors, of course. He's immediately upstaged by Detective Harrison, who's played by Ray Liotta (who I suspect has teamed up with Faye Dunaway to get matching plastic surgery so that they can become each other, a la Genesis P-Orridge and his departed soul mate Lady Jaye).

Little by little, the cracks start to show. Ronnie says inexcusable things ("Fuck you, Sadam Hussein of Iraq!") to an East Indian guy (played by Aziz Ansari), who works at a mall cart. He finds himself in the middle of a gang fight that he wins, tearing someone's flesh and exposing bone in the process (the film's flashes of brutal violence may distract some, but they feel really fucking honest to me). He admits to Brandi that he takes Clonazepam (you may know it as Klonopin), and she gladly helps herself to his stash (who's sadder?). Then, during an interview for his dream job (that of a real cop), he reveals that he has bipolar disorder. Here, Observe and Report ceases being the average dumb-guy-does-dumb-shit-because-dumb-is-funny comedy because it gives a reason for its anti-hero's behavior. In your average Will Ferrell farce, you're supposed to accept the idiocy and arrested development of the protagonist: why would you want to question anything that serves the comedy? And look, I get how absurdity works, but I can barely express how refreshing Observe's bit of levity is.

This explanation makes all the difference, and I'd argue that once Ronnie's condition is revealed, the film not only ceases being a dumb comedy, it ceases being a comedy all together. Sure, funny lines abound in either half of the film ("I have mace and Tasers. Fuck you."; "Part of me thinks this disgusting pervert is the best thing that ever happened to me."; "Everyone thinks they’re fine until someone puts something in them they don’t want in them."; "I’m switching to beer. I can pound those all day and still keep my shit together. And I’m doing it for you!" [The last one, by the way, belongs to Ronnie's mother, whose coddling, verbal abuse and overall inappropriateness also help explain why Ronnie is the way he is.]). Sure, the scene in which Ronnie and his security partner Dennis (Michael Peña) beat the shit out of rule-violating skateboarders is outrageous enough to elicit at least nervous laughter. But after Ronnie's reveal, it's unclear whether we're laughing at circumstance or his condition. Admirably, there are no easy answers, not even when Ronnie has sex with an inebriated Brandi after their date.

The controversial scene opens with him on top of her, and she appears to be passed out with vomit next to her. He stops mid-thrust and asks if she's OK. She comes to and slurs, "Why'd you stop motherfucker?" The scene sparked outrage in people who saw it as rape played for laughs. Antonia Zerbisias wrote, "...Retroactive consent is not consent," but the thing is that we have no idea whether the expressed consent is retroactive -- the scene jumps from outside of Brandi's house, so that we are unsure how aware she was moments before we cut in (if having sex with an obliterated girl constitutes rape, virtually every straight guy in America is a rapist). Regardless, this is a bold edit that shrouds the possible violation in the kind of ambiguity Observe is wrapped in. We could be watching rape, we could be watching two fucked-up people fucking. (It seems consensual to me -- they're both fucked up in their own ways and neither want to stop having sex.) Hill leaves the conclusion up to the viewer. There's barely an implied laugh track to be found in Observe and Report, and that might be the most disturbing thing about it.

Comments

[Noel]

Anna Faris is one of those people that just looking at her makes me start to laugh. I need to rent this immediately.

[Kerlyssa]

'It can't be rape, all guys do it!'

/sigh

[lily]

the bigger rape is that of my eyeballs by seth rogan. there is no female equivalent of seth rogan in front of a camera- and for good reason. His performance felt like a danny mcbride imitation to me.

[Amanda]

So...Jody Hill using rape is acceptable, but Diablo Cody using black language isn't? You seem to be weirdly selective about what is or is not offensive.

I personally liked the movie, but didn't laugh much.

A good review here...

http://cinephiliatheblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/observe-and-report-2009-dir-jody-hill.html

[Crescent]

I got to see an advanced screening of this in Chicago and some dude from AICN introduced it and said "Raise your hand if you think you are about to see a comedy" and of course everyone did. He was a little dramatic and went on to drop a millioin and one film fest names that he'd "attended" but I'll admit I was one of the people that thought it was going to be a Apatow-esque romp. (I hate that word but it's apt)

I couldn't stop talking or thinking about it for days. I loved it. I think.

[Jason C. Romero]

For the record, if someone is inebriated then they can't consent, and without consent it's rape. But I don't know what happens when both people are drunk.

[Jason]

Of course in a perfect world nobody would ever do an irresponsible thing like take drugs, drink and then have sloppy unremembered sex, and it's delightful to pretend we live in that world and to then go and judge those horrible people who do such things and call the horrible man the rapist and the loose girl the slut and to have a word for every action we take that just sums it all up in a neat little box. That would be a wonderful world to live in, huh?

Also, a sometimes positive thing is to realize we live in an imperfect world, this shit happens, and not everybody a fucking monster coded in black-and-white terms and sometimes it's the job of artistic endeavors to put a mirror up to these imperfections. Sometimes that works too.

Or ya know, cast the first stone and shit. Whatever.

[Kerlyssa]

Or maybe you shouldn't rape someone when they pass out on your furniture.

Just sayin'.

[Misery]

This movie was horrible. My husband loves Anna Faris, so that's the only reason why we watched it. I can't stand Seth, they need to stop putting him in movies!

[Jason]

Yes, thanks for that bit of wisdom there, Kerlyssa. I will tuck it away in my don't-forget-to-rape-anybody-today hope chest and cherish it a long time.

All this is missing my entire point however, that it's lovely to sit back and say someone's doing a bad thing but to bother to look at why somebody's doing a bad thing or to dissect how that bad thing sits in relation to not only the actual world we live in but the fake world of the movie that's been constructed by Mr. Hill and how that messes with our actual world, well that's apparently too much to bear. So we should all just see who can scream rape the loudest and then that person gets a cookie for being so bright.

[thistlebones]

Fucking a girl who is drunk is one thing.

Fucking a girl who is so shitfaced she's vomiting and unconscious is another thing entirely. Whether or not you consider it rape, it's hard to sympathize with a character who would be able to get hard at the prospect of fucking someone in that condition.

[Sam]

If either party or both is under the influence of alcohol, there is no consent.

[Jason]

Exactly. It is HARD to sympathize with that person. I also find it hard to sympathize with murderers and Republicans, but that doesn't mean I don't a film can't show me what those deranged people are up to too. Honestly I don't give a shit if anybody sympathizes with Ronnie, and I'm certainly not saying what he did in this scene wasn't wrong, and I don't think that Jonah Hill's intent either. This movie and this scene seems to me that it gets under so many people's skin because people just can't seem to fit it into the conventional boxes that they want it to get into: it stars comedians, it's got the punch-lines, but he undermines every scenario with what these horrible people would really be like to be around instead of the glossy, oh-let's-laugh-at-the-morons schtick that so much of supposed comedy is about today.

[Molly]

I love your site, and you are usually pretty on point with your reviews, but reading "if having sex with an obliterated girl constitutes rape, virtually every straight guy in America is a rapist" is pretty fucking disappointing.

When a girl is so drunk that she has puked on the pillow next to you and can barely speak, she cannot give consent.

[Robyn]

Hey, Rich. I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed in reading this review. You might find Sady's (Tiger Beatdown) opposing opinion pretty interesting. At least take a glance?

http://tigerbeatdown.blogspot.com/2009/04/um.html

[thistlebones]

Jason: to clarify I can't comment on the film as I haven't seen it.

Difficult, uncomfortable films are usually much more interesting than easy laughs. However, Rich's post seems to imply that it isn't rape or isn't a problem because plenty of straight men do the same thing in real life. Rich's writing style leads me to believe he's not being entirely serious with that comment, but I find that perspective pretty gross.

[Leroy]

Did I land on the wrong blog? Why the tempest in a tampon over one scene? Whether or not the scene depicts a rape by legal, moral or Taliban standards has nothing to do with the quality of the movie. Surely people are not suggesting here that a film should be condemned because it contains a rape scene or because the protagonist is unsympathetic?

That kind of moral high dudgeon over a film is just embarrassing.

And as to Rich's comment about straight men - that's what you call "hyperbole." Rhetorical device.
So pull your panties out your asscrack and give homey a break.

[melloe]

aw man, I really liked your Coraline header.

also, Seth Rogan is nasty-looking but I guess that makes him perfect for this part. even my love for Anna Faris could not get me to see this movie though..

[cizmad]

Based upon the logic of "consent cannot be given while one or both parties are intoxicated, and sex without consent is rape", like... who here is not a rapist or rape victim? Honestly.

The problem with the super-politically-correct brand of sexual understanding, wherein everyone must consent to everything and there is a piece of flavored latex to go over every STinfectable mucus membrane is that it bears no actual resemblance to the way things happen in life. There's always ambiguity in sex, there are always certain boundaries that get played with and compromises and adjustments to be made. Our sex bits, to put it bluntly, are not wired rationally.

People get drunk and fuck. That's not rape. People have sex and then regret it later. That's not rape. People lose their virginity when they're not sure about it at the time and then later the guy is a big jerk to them and they feel like they were used. Shitty? Yes. Still not rape. Sorry, but that word is a big, powerful one and the way it gets tossed around to describe every sexual situation where there's ambiguity or regret is ridiculous and detracts from the gravity of rape when it really happens.

So... to relate this back to discussion of the actual movie... I'm now really excited to see this, because I'm always into a movie that doesn't wrap the conclusions up in the shot, and as much as that may be a single scene, it's a scene that most movies would never have left open-ended.

[rustyspigot]

It just bothered me that there was no resolution to any of his actions. Oh, I killed six drug dealers, oh, I assaulted numerous skateboarding children. Oh, I fought the entire police force. Oh, I shot someone. And then he just goes home.

I did appreciate the liberal use of "Fuck!", though.

[EZ Mac]

The problem, cizmad, is that people like you dismiss rape "when it really happens." Because it REALLY HAPPENS just like that. Rape isn't always a stranger-in-a-dark-alley situation. It is USUALLY a situation such as this. The woman USUALLY knows the man. People need to be informed about what rape actually is. Especially men.

Intoxicated women cannot consent. Without consent, sex becomes rape. It is disgusting, dismissive, victim-blaming attitudes like yours that makes it difficult for women to report rapes such as these.

[Minkxx]

People get on my nerves with this everything short of a notarized contract is rape nonsense. Sexual acts can be off-putting (having sex with a girl who (maybe in the scene you didn't see) says yes, pukes, falls asleep, wakes up and says keep going) without being rape. You can let someone pork you and regret it the next day, that doesn't then turn the act into rape. If some guys is persistent and you "didn't know how to say no," that's not rape. That's a lesson. Grow a pair and learn to stand up for yourself.

I'm a woman (all day and all night) and I don't say this just to be a jerk. All this responsibility we try to put on guys for making absolutely sure we absolutely mean yes and didn't happen to change our minds is unfair, unreasonable, and it puts too much responsibility for our bodies in the hands of some guy.

Real feminism, real protection of women demands that we learn to be empowered and protect ourselves. Rape is too serious and too heartbreaking to be called out every time some girl doesn't feel so good about what happened last night.

[s2couto]

You know what bothers me most about when people, especially women, talk about rape? No one ever admits to being raped. Stats are 70% of women will experience some form of sexual assault. Here, I'll say it: I was sexually assaulted. It was a friend. I was intoxicated as was he, and I was asleep when he decided then was a good time to get off. Such seems to be the case in this movie.

Here's the other problem: victim-blaming and bleeding heart liberalism. Are you trying to tell me in Western society that men don't know right from wrong re: rape? That we should be more concerned about one's reasons for raping and tell victims to "grow a pair"? This is the court process in a nutshell. The victim is swept under the rug and accused persons get every program available to them to "reprogram" this behaviour. And they always re-offend. And they always take someone down with them. And everyone involved learns a behaviour, whether it be rape is a mitigatable offence or that women need to take it and shut up about it. And so the cycle continues. Both parties are important here and if more people would ADMIT it happened to them and discuss it, not treat it as a dirty, unspoken, didn't-fucking-happen event we would get somewhere. But the code of silence is preserved by people who blame victims and mollycoddle offenders. Do people not know this shit?

Rich, I don't know how flippant (or not) you were being, but I am also disappointed. I wonder if you consider women.

[hi]

I love your blog Rich, but you're often a little off when it comes to feminism. You're essentially telling women to learn to take a joke. In this "I Kissed a Girl"/post-Girls Gone Wild culture, girls find themselves doing things they don't want to do just to keep men around (because it's expected of them), and men are not expected to reciprocate in that manner. There's a conversation that needs to be had about nihilism and the abused's quest for love, but deeming something okay because it's common is completely shutting that dialogue down.

In response to the commenter Lee, anyone who refers to a feminist backlash as a "tempest in a tampon" is not going to like or understand the answers to any questions he might ask.

[N]

my god, people, Rich didn't personally rape you or your little dog either. neither did Seth Rogen. get the fuck over it.